Global temperatures could break through the 1.5 degree Celsius barrier negotiated at the Paris conference as early as 2026, say scientists who predict that a slow-moving, natural climate driver could cause a sharp acceleration in global warming over the next decade.

The Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation (IPO) - a powerful natural climate lever - may have moved into a positive phase.

Since 1999, the IPO has been in a negative phase but consecutive record-breaking warm years in 2014, 2015 and 2016 have led climate researchers to suggest this may have changed.

Scientists at the University of Melbourne in Australia showed that a positive IPO would likely produce a sharp acceleration in global warming over the next decade.

In the past, these positive phases have coincided with accelerated global warming.

Kyx wrote:Global temperatures could break through the 1.5 degree Celsius barrier negotiated at the Paris conference as early as 2026, say scientists who predict that a slow-moving, natural climate driver could cause a sharp acceleration in global warming over the next decade.

The Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation (IPO) - a powerful natural climate lever - may have moved into a positive phase.

Since 1999, the IPO has been in a negative phase but consecutive record-breaking warm years in 2014, 2015 and 2016 have led climate researchers to suggest this may have changed.

Scientists at the University of Melbourne in Australia showed that a positive IPO would likely produce a sharp acceleration in global warming over the next decade.

In the past, these positive phases have coincided with accelerated global warming.

Although global warming is definitely happening at the moment, I do think that we are doing as much as we can to control the issue (certainly compared to previous years decades ago, when cars were smokey and polluting etc - compare modern cars to 1960s-1980s cars and see which one protects the environment more!) and that the issue is not as bad as some people make out sometimes.

Though of course, there are still some little things that can be done, such as making homes more efficient (with insulation) so that no heat escapes, and making electronic stuff as efficient as possible. For example, my old 15 inch LCD TV (when used as a monitor) used to draw 30W and the power adapter always used to get quite warm (before it totally packed up), hopefully more modern TVs (this one was 10 years old) are more power efficient too. Same goes with lights, we used to have 50W halogens in our spotlights, they are now 5W LED. if everyone switched from incandescent (or halogen) to LED it would make a big difference.

princechromey wrote:Although global warming is definitely happening at the moment, I do think that we are doing as much as we can to control the issue (certainly compared to previous years decades ago, when cars were smokey and polluting etc - compare modern cars to 1960s-1980s cars and see which one protects the environment more!) and that the issue is not as bad as some people make out sometimes.

Though of course, there are still some little things that can be done, such as making homes more efficient (with insulation) so that no heat escapes, and making electronic stuff as efficient as possible. For example, my old 15 inch LCD TV (when used as a monitor) used to draw 30W and the power adapter always used to get quite warm (before it totally packed up), hopefully more modern TVs (this one was 10 years old) are more power efficient too. Same goes with lights, we used to have 50W halogens in our spotlights, they are now 5W LED. if everyone switched from incandescent (or halogen) to LED it would make a big difference.

I agree that much has been done, but there is also much that still has to be done!